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It’s been about 3 days since Michael first formally introduced Jeremy to Stephen and Nick and they seem to be getting along great.
Jeremy seemed a bit nervous at first but he quickly got along well with the two which took a huge weight off of Michael’s shoulder. His other two friends even inviting Jeremy to sit beside them in any classes that they share so they can get to know him.
It was a Friday evening and none of them really wanted to go home yet. They were dragging out their conversations in front of the school, taking as long as possible to get to their bikes, knowing that all of them will be bored out of their minds by the time they get home.
Before they could say their goodbyes, Stephen suggests, ‘Maybe we can go do something today?”
Everyone was quick to agree. A chain of arguing about where to go and what to do ensues before they finally settled on a plan.
First they would go to Michael’s father’s Diner and have Michael try and get the underpaid workers to give them free lunch, something they knew from experience would probably work since Michael does this quite often and even if the worker is new there is no denying his similar appearance to his father.
After that, Michael would use the employee codes he got from Henry to be able to play unlimited times on the limited arcade games stationed to the side, they wonder why a dinner even has arcade games but they aren’t complaining.
Once they got bored of that they could walk around the admittedly small town, deciding to save the mall for another day. Besides, there was a decent selection of shops around that they could visit. And finally if they somehow got bored of that and it isn’t too late, they could terrorise kids in the park.
This seemed like a perfect day for them and the set their plan into motion.
The trip to Freddy’s wasn’t very long since the gaggle decided that they would race to see who could reach Fredbear’s the fastest. This was a race that Jeremy had no chance in winning since he didn’t know the other guys’ usual route, but he believes that if he had the roads memorised the same way they do, he could probably win.
Once they got there, Michael insisted heavily that he won the race, despite Nick stopping 5 seconds before him. Nick only argued with Michael a little bit before giving up because he knew annoying Michael would not go well with how short his temper is.
Michael turned to Jeremy and questioned him half angrily, “who do you think won, me or Nick?” Nick and Stephen, seeing that Michael was starting to lose his temper, decided it would be easier to hint to Jeremy to say Michael to keep the peace.
Jeremy thankfully caught onto their hints “I think you won Michael.” Jeremy answers with a smile.
Michael runs up to Jeremy and hugs him. This causes Jeremy, to heat up, being a bit unaware of what he should be doing in the moment. It also surprises Nick and Stephen as Michael is usually averse to even standing too close to someone, cringing away from physical contact.
“I knew I could count on you to answer truthfully!” Michael exclaims, joy clear in his voice. Jeremy is taken aback with how quickly his mood changed, feeling that he should take note of that mentally.
Michael pats Jeremy on the back and steps away from him, causing the curly haired boy to shiver from the sudden wave of cold, forgetting that it’s still winter.
The boys decide to go inside, not wasting anymore time in the cold and Jeremy is happy to have some heat again.
Seeing the group of boys approach, the employee working the till already looks like she was debating quitting right then and there.
“Welcome to Fredbear’s Family Diner, what can I-“ She’s cut off by Michael starting to speak. “Hey Jen! Can we get two pizzas?”
Jennifer, who would rather be anywhere else but here, answers “I can’t keep giving you free pizza Michael.”
This makes Jeremy wonder about how right Michael’s statement of ‘if you tell the workers you’re my friend there is a high chance you will get a discount” is.
As this thought occurred to Jeremy, he sees Michael all but throw himself on the ground begging. The group thinks it’s very odd that he’s going to these lengths when they knows Michael in fact, has money.
After about two minutes of the display, Jennifer relents and decides it would be easier to just give her boss’s son the pizzas.
Michael, overjoyed by the fact, turns to face his friends, flashing a big grin at them along with a thumbs up. The three look back at him, their faces painted with varying levels of grimaces and second hand embarrassment.
“Does he always do this?” Jeremy asks, hoping that that is not the case. The sighs of the other two gives him the answer he needs. Guess he’s going to have to get used to this.
They sit down at a booth together, forgetting about Michael’s display and instead talking about what games they would play later once they ate.
After about 10 minutes, they get their crappy pizza and all conversations cease as the pizzas disappear, with minimal fighting on who get’s what slice.
Just as they were about to finish, Michael sees a familiar figure approach.
“Henry!” Michael exclaims. He is awaiting news from the older man about the masks that he and his friends will get early access too as he has been very interested in especially the design phases of it and enjoyed hearing all about it. He hoped Henry had more news about them.
“hey kid!” Henry says smiling as he walks over to the group of boys and ruffles the tallest one’s head. “Who is this?” Henry asks looking over at the newest addition to the friend group.
The boy awkwardly smiles at him and outstretches a nervous hand. “I’m Jeremy, I’ve-“
Jeremy get’s cut off when Henry interjects. “Oh Jeremy! I’ve heard Michael-“ Henry himself getting cut off when the brunet boy reaches up, clasps a hand at Henry’s mouth and shushes him.
This whole interaction gives him Deja-vu to when Nick also said Michael was talking about him. Jeremy’s face heats up for what feels like the 20th time. Why does Michael keep talking about him, and why does he never get to know what he says? What if he’s only kept around to be laughed out.
During Jeremy’s mental conflict, Henry has gently pushed The boy staring at him with wide blue eyes away. “I have some news that might excite you Michael.” He claims with a smile.
Henry reaches his hand into a bag he had hanging at his side, Michael’s excitement was evident in the way he was grinning ear to ear and almost shaking in anticipation.
In the older man’s hand were four masks, they depict the animatronic characters from the show, which eventually will get their own restaurant.
Michael, full of excitement exclaimed how perfect they are, trying to act uncaring but everyone could see through the act that he was trying to play. He dishes out the masks of their choosing to each of his friends. Each of them more interested about how giddy Michael was instead of the masks they were handed.
He handed Chica to Nick, Freddy to Stephen, Bonnie to Jeremy and he kept Foxy for himself, as Foxy is his favourite after all.
After a few words of thanks to Henry, the boys opted to go play some of the arcade games. Everyone was very grateful for Michael’s access to the employee codes as it probably saved them a fortune with how long they played.
Michael immediately dragged the group to the machines where he has a high score in, hoping to show off to Jeremy who has not seen Michael’s skills in these games yet. Michael really wanted Jeremy to keep thinking he was cool and he was sure that getting far in Galaga would prove it.
Jeremy, honestly was quite impressed by how much time Michael must have wasted to be able to get so far into the game. And Michael was trying extra hard to pay attention to the game and not Jeremy’s reaction.
At some point Jeremy put his hands on Michael’s shoulders trying to get a better look at what he was doing. This caused the boy playing to focus even harder on the game to try and ignore the pink inevitably consuming his whole face.
By the time Michael died in the game, he noticed that he managed to get a new high score on the machine. Proudly he imputed his signature initials and turned around, beaming at his friends as he waited for their approval with a puffed out chest.
“Dude that was hella impressive!” Jeremy exclaimed picking up on this.
“Thanks!” Michael says a bit shyly, the compliment feeling a bit differently compared to when his other friends say it. He chalks it up to his friendship with Jeremy being a recent development.
Nick and Stephen side eye each other, catching onto something that the other two don’t.
“Can we play the basketball shooting game?” Stephen asks, filling the silence that has developed.
“Yeah I’ll go unblock it.” Michael replied, happy to let his friend show off at the game he’s good at.
They later decided to face off in street fighter.
“Dude you suck at this.” Nick sneers to Stephen.
“Oh come on! You know I don’t spend all day mashing buttons!” Stephen rebuttals, a bit salty at the loss.
“I want to play against Nick now!” Michael calls out ash he walks up to the game and pushes Stephen away, who glares at him in response.
The game was evenly matched with Michael winning by a hair, yelling at Nick the whole round. Michael gets very competitive especially when playing Nick in streetfighter as the boys have a pretty even winning streak, the odds of either winning being the same as a coin flip.
“Let’s see what you are made of Fitzgerald!” Michael taunts Jeremy, inviting the curly haired boy to play against him.
What Michael doesn’t know is that Jeremy is actually really good at streetfighter, he figures this out when his character has a quarter of their health left while Jeremy’s health bar has barley decreased.
The taller boy looks over at Jeremy and pouts while giving him puppy dog eyes, which makes Jeremy feel a bit bad if he beats him with such a huge difference.
Jeremy starts to play a bit sloppy, slowing down his attacks and being slow to dodge hits. He sees Michael immediately light up after they stood on more even ground and it made Jeremy decide that he wanted to let Michael win.
“WOO!” Michael exclaims after ‘beating’ Jeremy, while the former leans on the arcade cabinet and smiles fondly at the excitement of the brunet.
Nick approaches Jeremy while Stephen is forced to listen to Michael most likely brag.
“why did you let him win?” The shorter boy ask, leaning back on the cabinet to join Jeremy.
“I don’t know, just felt like it I guess.” Jeremy replies, the warm tone in his voice causes Nick to drop it.
“I think we should go walk around town now.” Stephen says to the two boys at the cabinet, Michael nodding along.
The four boys left Fredbear’s Diner, grabbed their bikes and cycled towards the shops that line the side of the roads, they decided to stick to their plan and head into a few of them.
The boys were very eager to check out the music shop first to see if there are any new albums they could pick up, especially in the used record and cassette section where they would be at a great discount while most of the time still being in perfect condition, probably due to the first owner either not liking them or listening to them so much they got sick of the music.
The group split up due to differing tastes in music, Nick and Michael decided to check out the metal section, hoping to find something new or heavier.
Jeremy decides that he would just browse the used cassette section as he had little money on him due to not expecting to be asked to hang out. He smiled to himself, he is probably the happiest he has been in a while. That he has friends that actually want to spend time with him outside of school. And to think that it’s all because he got stood up on Valentine’s day.
While Jeremy was distracted in thought Stephen snuck up behind him, now wearing his new Freddy mask.
“Boo!” Stephen startles Jeremy causing him to yelp and drop the tape he was holding. “Woah don’t let Michael find out you react like that to jumpscares! You won’t get a single second of calm!” Stephen adds as he looks down to see what album Jeremy was looking at.
“The Cure? Didn’t really expect that from you.” Stephen says.
Jeremy feels heat rise in his face, this time definitely from embarrassment. “I’ve never listened to The Cure before, I just thought the albums colours stood out.”
In that moment, Michael leans over Jeremy’s shoulder, dropping the perfect amount of money to buy the album into Jeremy’s hand. “You should listen to them, they are one of my favourites.”
“Everything seems to be one of your favourite.” Stephen adds, rolling his eyes.
“I can’t possibly buy the tape with your money Michael!” Jeremy says with sincerity.
“Fine.” Michael says, taking both the tape and the money from Jeremy’s hands and walks over to the counter and pays (one of the few times he actually does).
“Here, a gift.” Michael says, holding the now bagged cassette towards Jeremy, giving the bag a little shake. “It’s rude to not accept gifts.” Michael says sternly.
“It will be easier if you just take it, trust me.” Stephen whispers to Jeremy.
“Thank you, Michael.” Jeremy smiles at him gingerly while accepting the gift.
Michael smiles. “Nick, you done looking yet?” Michael calls back to the almost black haired boy standing a ways away from the other three. “Yeah!” he replied, making his way towards the group as they headed for the exit.
They cycled around, deciding that no other shop was worth going into and instead diverted to go towards the park.
They spent a few minutes walking around, their earlier hopes of scaring kids dissipated as no one seemed to be around as it is still getting dark early, the cold winter air could also be a contributing factor.
In the distance, Michael sees a deserted playground and an idea forms in his head.
“Stephen, whoever stays on longer on the spinny thing wins.” Michael dares.
Stephen, who rarely turns down a challenge accepted without hesitation.
Both boys grab on hard to the free standing spinners. Nick turns to Jeremy. “You will now find out about their stupidest form of entertainment, and probably the reason they are the way they are.”
Despite this, He walks to the spinner and starts to spin the two boys clinging on for dear life it seemed.
Screams erupt and it is not long before Michael is sent flying off, skidding on the ground, thankfully having a jumper that prevented him from losing all the skin on his arms. Stephen clings on tight as the spinner slowly comes to a stop.
Both boys make eye contact and laugh while Jeremy looks at them in horror that this is something they consistently do, debating on running over to check on Michael or not.
“Are they braindead?” he instead asks Nick, who folds his arms and replies, “They will be soon.”
They end up doing this a few more times, worrying the hell out of Jeremy. He couldn’t be more grateful for something getting boring.
They hung around the playground for about half an hour after, sitting on the swings and talking about whatever topics came up. It was a nice evening, they all wore smiles on their faces, their hearts full of joy.
Eventually it started becoming uncomfortably cold and everyone decided to call it a night. They said their goodbyes and got on their bikes, Stephen and Nick leaving together as the lived in the same direction.
As Jeremy was cycling home, he noticed that Michael was cycling beside him.
“Do you live down this way?” Jeremy asked
“No.” Michael gave a quick reply.
“Why are you going this way then?” Jeremy asked, though it’s not like he didn’t appreciate the others presence.
“I don’t really want to go home yet, I’m stalling.”
“Why?” Jeremy asked.
“No reason.” Michael answered. Jeremy decided that he wouldn’t ask anymore about the topic.
“Did you enjoy today?” Michael said, more to fill the silence.
“Yes, very much.” Jeremy answered truthfully smiling at Michael.
Michael smiled back, warmth creeping up his neck despite the chill of the night. “I’m glad.”
They stopped, now in front of Jeremy’s house.
“Thank you for cycling home with me, and the tape, and well, everything I guess.” Jeremy smiled at him.
“It’s no bother.” Michael replied, it seemed like he would say something more but he said nothing. The silence stretched on.
“Well I’ll see you soon, bye Michael.”
“Bye.” Michael responded, not really wanting to leave. Despite this he turned his bike around and started heading away.
Jeremy walked into the house and was immediately swarmed by his parents.
“Jeremy! Where have you been!” “It’s so late!” “We were so worried!” Jeremy’s parents said in turns fusing over their boy.
“I was just out with my friends” Jeremy says with a smile.
Jeremy’s parents eyes widen. “It’s been a while since you went out with friends after school.” Jeremy’s mother, Teresa stated, smiling after she processed the statement.
“Were you with the British one that was knocking at our door in the early hours of the morning?” Jeremy’s father, Seán asks.
“Yes, Michael and two other friends, Stephen and Nick.” Jeremy’s parents smile at him a warm light cast on them from the yellow lightbulbs.
Jeremy smells dinner being cooked, reminding him of how hungry he is.
“Go sit down Jeremy your mam is cooking dinner.” Jeremy’s dad states.
Jeremy wouldn’t say it out loud but he is happy his mom is cooking, hid dad’s food usually tastes very bland.
After a while, the three are sitting down at the table and talking.
“So what did you do today? Seán asks his son.
“Well...” Jeremy spend the next ten minutes telling his parents all he did with his friends.
“They seem like bad influences.” His dad says.
“They seem wonderful, it’s so nice that you have such close friends now.” Teresa smiles.
They finish up dinner and Jeremy goes upstairs. He lays down on his bed and puts his new tape in his cassette player. The album starts playing and Jeremy is engrossed, he thinks it’s actually really good and he listens all the way through.
He thinks about the album name, Three Imaginary Boys. It reminds him of how he feels as if his three new friends are actually imaginary, too good to be true. He has known them for three days but they get along so well with him that Jeremy doesn’t even think they are real. He smiles to himself, because his friends are in fact, real.
He lays back and wonders if Michael is also listening to this album right now, how it would be to sit with Michael and to listen to a whole album with him. He wonders if they have similar tastes in music, and if not if they could show each other more new music.
Jeremy falls asleep right before the last song ends.
Michael walks into his house. The hallways feeling sterile as he kicks his shoes off and puts them neatly in the cupboard, away from the clean formal shoes as to not ruin the image his father has crafted.
Speaking of his father, he can hear the yelling of him and his mum upstairs. This has become an increasingly common occurrence in his house, he just hoped that his siblings were too preoccupied to hear it, for once hoping that they stole his cassette player.
He walks into the kitchen and heats himself a stale slice of pizza and turns on the TV. He watches mindlessly until he finished eating and turns it off, not really caring about what was playing.
He heads upstairs and enters his room and finds his cassette tape lying on his bed, “so it has been used,” he thinks to himself.
Michael sifts through his collection of music, trying to find the loudest metal tape he owns but in the end, after thinking about Jeremy, he chooses his Cure tape.
He lays on his stomach and draws. He wonders if Jeremy is listening to the tape he bought him, what he thinks of it. He hopes Jeremy likes it and that maybe he’d like some other stuff Michael likes and they could listen to them together. Michael replays the tape multiple times before he finally falls asleep.